Unshakable faith requires a trustworthy foundation.

~Zorya, Goddess of the Sun Gate

Song Xue hid in the shadows, staring at the young man escorted by powerful cultivators. They weren’t hiding their Ruby-3 Shields, making her task seem impossible.

Hidden in the shadows, no one noticed her, but they felt a cold chill when they passed by her hiding place. Hate surged through every cell of her being; this time, her target was personal. Even if her master offered this target, she’d have taken it for free.

Agitated, daggers mysteriously appeared in her hands, twirled, and vanished. It happened so fast, but the habit helped soothe her mind. She could hear her master complaining about her sloppy emotions impeding the kill.

This wasn’t a kill she actively sought but one that came to her. The moment she saw him, she felt the shackles of karma chaining them together. It’s a shame the boy was clueless. The hyper-aware mode she entered when she saw him was something Crow jokingly called the Nature of the Wolf.

Crow knew of her nature and never judged her for it, which is another reason for her to love her childhood friend. His actions were always so powerful, and she had an unshakable faith in him. That bond was almost broken once, and she knew it wasn’t his fault. One of the reasons she became a killer was because of that event. One day, she’d grin mercilessly as she slit the throat of the person that tried to take her most precious thing from her.

Regardless, when she was on the hunt, she’d enter her wolf mode, which allowed her presence to fade. The bow Crow made augmented her ability, and her master helped her train it to another level. Song Xue wasn’t sure if the ability came from her bloodline or a physique, but her master believed she had the Winter’s Soul Physique, which allowed the person to conceal their presence by hiding emotion and thoughts. Even powerful experts wouldn’t notice her unless they had rare vigilant-type techniques.

What Song Xue didn’t know was that the reason she was hidden so well wasn’t just her presence. Her skill also suppressed her mana leakage, and she’d give off less mana than a stone. This was the real reason experts wouldn’t see her because they’d never have expected such a unique ability.

The boy and his two protectors entered the inn she was leaning against. After they went inside, Song Xue reached her hand up and activated her Flying Blizzard Claw. It grasped the roof’s edge and pulled her up so fast that she shot up above the lip of the roof and landed gently on the flat top. The roof was an abandoned garden terrace, so no one came here.

Even the stairs leading down to the lower floors were hidden at the end of the L-shaped hall. Most of the rooms around the bend were cheap and small, so usually, they were only used by mortals. They used those stairs as a way to avoid running into cultivators. In reality, many inns had hidden servant stairs for this exact reason.

Song Xue moved down to each floor, ensuring no one spotted her. She’d creep to the bend, place her fingers against the ground, and sense the vibrations. She could sense people moving around using this method, but its range wasn’t huge. She repeated the same process on each floor until she found her prey.

The boy’s guards actually left and went down to the great room, which surprised her. Something was off because there was no way they’d abandon their ward to eat. However, she was patient. During her year away from Crow, she would spend weeks stalking a target, so a few hours wasn’t much.

Instinct was a huge requirement for an assassin. However, her version of instinct was honed through being attentive to details. Faelan’s master once told her that instinct is her Mind’s way of warning that it subconsciously noticed something was off. Honing instinct was about making the subconscious conscious.

Eventually, her patience paid off. A man exited the room whom she hadn’t sensed at all. Upon seeing his evil smile and dead eyes, her blood ran cold. This man was second on her list of fuckers she would kill. The only one she wanted dead more than him was the mysterious person that tried to split her and Crow apart.

Xu Chen, the man that killed her parents and Song Lin’s fiancé, stood before her in the flesh. Faelan blanked out momentarily. She was spooked because he shouldn’t be here. This man was ruthlessly hunting her big sister, and there was no way this was a coincidence.

Xu Chen stopped, turned, and stared down the hall with a frown. In shock, Song Xue let slip a bit of her essence and nearly gave herself away. When Crow returned, she’d have to spend extra time with him for giving her this bow, which had probably saved her life.

After several long seconds, he left. Song Xue put her eyes on his boots and watched them go. Master told her that the observer theories involved looking directly at a person and that it somehow disturbed the mana around a person. Those sensitive to it could locate that intent. Boots were the trick because she could still watch her target without giving herself away.

After the man left, his son Xu Qin walked out the door, but he was clearly angry. Instead of heading downstairs, he walked in Song Xue’s direction, heading toward the back stairs.

Thinking fast, she dropped some caltrops disguised as kid’s toys. Only these nasty things had a slow-acting poison that Song Lin designed. It wouldn’t present any signs until it reached the brain and shut down all bodily functions.

“Dammit!” Xu Qin growled. Squatting down, he pulled the ‘toy’ out of his boot, and out of anger, he slapped the toys away, cutting himself even more. Song Xue, who was secretly watching, almost snickered out loud. She hadn’t expected him to use his hand, and now he had several doses inside him. It’d speed up the process, and she guessed he probably had three hours.

Before the boy even left the inn through the back door, Song Xue had already picked up all her toys. Escaping to the roof, she stared at the boy leaving, and he hadn’t even made it to the side street before he collapsed. Alarmed, Faelan watched for a few more seconds and saw the kid twitching, still hidden from view in the alley.

Faelan ran and jumped the narrow gap between this building and the next, her black hair trailing behind her as she flew from building to building. Eventually, she reached her destination and dropped down into an alley. Swapping out of her assassin gear, she looked like any other cultivator, and few suspected that behind her frail body was a ruthless killer. She felt no guilt about killing the son of the man who massacred her family.

When she reached Mara and her sister, the news was already spreading about Xu Qin’s mysterious death. Nin was probably the only one who knew what Faelan, Song Xue’s assassin persona, was doing because she was very sensitive to auras. After a kill, no matter how much Song Xue tried to exit her wolf mode and suppress the killing intent, it couldn’t escape a dragon’s sensitivity.

Others suspected but never talked about it. Only Crow knew the full extent of what she was capable of; since he trusted her, the others did the same. It was a secret none of them talked about, sort of like how they all knew Song Lin was experimenting with poisons but never brought it up. Some secrets were best left in the shadows.

“What is it?” Mara asked. Song Xue’s face was as impassive as ever, but Mara had spent enough time around her to sense her moods.

Song Xue’s eyes darted toward her big sister.

“He’s here.”

Song Lin’s face paled, and her shoulders trembled. Outwardly, that was the only reaction, but they were all sisters now, so they didn’t need words to speak their thoughts. Besides, they all knew Song Lin’s traumatic story, and this was the worst kind of news.

“We leave tonight. Tell Acco to get Otto. We’ve delayed climbing to the ninth floor long enough. Crow will catch up when he can,” Mara commanded.

Crow might have left her in charge, but that wasn’t why they followed her. The woman was a treasure when it came to leading. She had a sixth sense for when and where to do things but only ever commanded when she was sure it was necessary. In all other events, she sought their opinion and didn’t belittle any of them.

Song Xue didn’t bother telling them about her other activity. Besides, Xu Qin’s death would help create enough confusion for them to sneak away.

In the middle of the night, as they left their inn through the back alleys, no one noticed the wagon slowly pacing them on a parallel street. If they had, they’d have recognized the man driving was none other than Madame Rouge’s coachman.